What Job 'Training' Teaches? Bad Work Habits

James Bovard: What Job 'Training' Teaches? Bad Work Habits - WSJ.com

Last Thursday, President Obama proposed new federal jobs and job-training programs for youth and the long-term unemployed.
The federal government has experimented with these programs for almost a half century.
The record is one of failure and scandal......


After CETA became a laughingstock, Congress replaced it in 1982 with the Job Training Partnership Act. JTPA spent lavishly—to expand an Indiana circus museum, teach Washington taxi drivers to smile, provide foreign junkets for state and local politicians, and bankroll business relocations.
According to the Labor Department's inspector general, young trainees were twice as likely to rely on food stamps after JTPA involvement than before since the "training" often included instructions on applying for an array of government benefits.

For years the Labor Department scorned the mandate in the 1982 legislation to speedily and thoroughly evaluate whether the programs actually benefitted trainees.
Finally, in 1993, it released a study that showed participation in JTPA "actually reduced the earnings of male out-of-school youths."
Young males enrolled in JTPA programs had 10% lower earnings than a control group that never participated......
Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office reported that there were 47 different federal employment and training programs, costing taxpayers $18 billion a year.
There is massive overlap and duplication, and few programs seriously evaluate their impact on trainees.

If federal job training efforts worked, Congress would not have thrown out the programs it has created every decade or so and enacted new ones.
In reality, government training has always been driven by bureaucratic convenience, or politicians' re-election considerations.
There is no reason to believe the latest round of proposals will be any different.

This is, or should be, a national scandal!